Treat a ship like a lady
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: Strongly AU. Voyager is a ship where malfunctions with strange circumstances are a daily phenomenon, for everyone. Well, Almost everyone... Sorry if its a bit too rambly.


**About 'A Slight change'** Please feel free to offer suggestions for the topic/subjects of the next chapters of 'A Slight Change'. I had two, then didn't get any more ideas - I got one now but no specific episode in mind... Delta Flyer *much earlier*, pre-seven if you will, then modified afterward with borg tech over several refits. Starts off as Tom's personal project, to the point that he even "Has it's pink slip" to use a modern day equivalent. Now I mention it, hmm.. Pre seven: Delta Flyer v1. post borg additions, DFv2, and then a endgame-style self-reconfiguring v3. Think transformers, only not that, just from a basic "look at this stylish shuttle" to "GRRR! I'm an Attack Fighter!"using the idea of transporters 'dematerialising' the necessary points, and rematerialising the 'attack fighter' parts, extra rooms etcetera. Hey, I can also be a nice fanon go-around on the shuttle bay doors width issue. :P

BUT for that Delta Flyer thing, I am in fact talking about it appearing in/around specific early episodes... and that-episode-that-shall-not-be-named, the one with the lizards, na-uh. I didn't like the ep, even tho it provided more ammo for a J/P relationship.

I just don't know what episodes to pick. BUT that time-travel ep with Chakotay and Kim and the Doc in the future, where the slipstream stuff sent voyager into an ice planet? small change to that: Chakotay and Harry tell Geordi, "Starfleet never owned the Delta Flyer." Heh. I just want to write it all as a single chapter.

Anyway on with this one.

**"Treat the ship like a lady..."** - As the phrase goes, -the lady'll be kind to you. Well okay thats not the phrase, but it sorta applies for the bunny.

_Bridge, USS Voyager._

Newly-commissioned Lieutenant Paris stroked the console kindly as he took this seat, his seat for the first time, as a starfleet officer.

Murmuring softly, he greeted, "Hey girl. Lets get you home."

_a few years later, corridor of a deck somewhere on voyager_

B'Elanna was worried. Several times since she had started to 'date' Tom, various problems had cropped up that no one else seemed to have. After the 4th time, people had noticed, but couldn't find the source of these malfunctions, and logs never even showed that there was one in any way.

For instance, this last one, she called for "Deck 3." in a turbolift, and it had deposited her on Deck 5.

Previous to that, after restoring power to most of the crew quarters (because of some battle), she found that of the 5 or 6 quarters left yet without power, one was hers. Only it should have been restored when she repaired the section of the ship hers had been in, and the others were all elsewhere and had an entirely different reason for why they were not getting power.

Once she had fixed that, though, her quarters suddenly did. She didn't understand it.

She was distracted when Tom came out of sickbay, and upon seeing her, instead of following her down the corridor to, wherever he seemed to have been about to go, instead turned away and went somewhere else.

that night, the wrong holodeck program was called up, when she wanted to go orbital skydiving.

_Captains Ready Room, some indeterminate time later_

Kathryn Janeway looked up, startled by what her first officer had just said.

"The ship what?"

Chakotay repeated himself, "The ship seems to dislike B'Elanna. In the last week, half of her commands were disregarded in some fashion, and a quarter of the rest were strangely not picked up on when the audio receptors in those sections 'malfunctioned' for the period of time it took for her to give those commands. The only ones that seem to go through no problem, are when we're in trouble."

Janeway didn't know whether to laugh or sternly tell her ship off and_ then_ laugh anyway.

"Couldn't it just be malfunctions that have plagued our systems for years?" she asked. "Lord knows my replicator seems to have good and bad days." She gave a sad sigh at the full cup of coffee on her desk, the cool liquid having not been touched.

A chime made them straighten up a bit, and after being called, the doors opened and Tom stepped in, and they could briefly see someone else at the helm before the doors closed behind the lieutenant.

"Yes, Tom?" Kathryn asked politely.

With a small cough, he glanced at Chakotay, and asked, "You still up for time on the holodeck?" He glanced at the table, and smiled a little wider seeing a distinct lack of PADDs, which was neither a rare yet nor common sight.

"New holo program, Tom?" Chakotay asked politely, as the only times he's known Tom to seek this out of the captain was when he did indeed have one that wasn't just for him. Sadrines was the exception that created the rule, as she discovered that program before he was finished with the 'public' version of it.

Janeway smiled secretively, and just let the two men talk.

"I guess you could say that."

"Another trip to the depths of history, I guess?" Chakotay asked, a little sarcasm in the last two words.

"Not exactly."

This continued for a minute, with Chakotay slowly started to subtly insert negative comments. The only sign that tom even noticed so was strangely enough, a small twinkle in his eye, Chakotay didn't catch it, but knowing him the way she did, Janeway did. She inserted before they could drop the polite facade to openly argue, "I'll be along in half an hour. Save me a seat."

"Of course." With that, he left, knowing she had dismissed him with her answer.

Immediately upon the door closing, Chakotay mumbled something that gave her cause to actually say something about their relationship.

"Commander, that is enough. I know you two have never gotten along, but I thought that eventually, after he explained what had happened back then, that you would be able to be more than just civil to one another."

He sighed, and nodded a little shamefully, "I'm sorry, Kathryn." She arched an eyebrow at that, "Captain." She smiled tightly. He then admitted, "I... got over that part of our history, some time ago."

"Then why do you continue to be, ever so subtly, hostile towards him?"

He smiled alittle, "B'Elanna told me he gets some twisted enjoyment from it."

For some reason, she didn't believe that B'Elanna was right about that. But she didn't say so. instead, she said, "Speaking of, I know that she thought she was going to be on shift, and after the roster changes you made meant otherwise, I heard she was rather... put out, that he'd already made other plans." She twitched her lips a little at particular points.

"Yes, they had another argument about that." He winced, rubbing his left ear a little, as though it was sore, "Even I thought she was out of line for suggesting that he shouldn't spend time with you in those holoprograms." It hadn't been a secret that she'd had fortnightly sessions with him in various programs, 'just hanging out' as Tom had called it.

"How did you calm her down?" She questioned, knowing that Tom hadn't been to sickbay again to get some bruises healed. After the third time, she'd learned to keep a close eye so that she could maybe step in before it got to a dangerous point. Their 'genuine' arguments hadn't reached the point that 5 minutes with a dermal regenerator wasn't enough.

Scratching his ear again, he didn't answer, and instead asked, "What makes you think i had?"

She thought for a moment, before she sighed, "So I can't get you to promise to quit with the hostility... faked as it is?"

"Tuvok's known for awhile, and he suggested we keep it up after we... stopped for awhile."

She actually bugged her eyes out at that, "he did?"

"Apparently, it helps keep up morale, and we're a little bit more efficient, and it's a safe and productive way to take out our frustrations."

"Now, you don't think it's inappropriate for me and Tom to spend some of our spare time together?" She intentionally phrased it that way, although she knew he'd know that she didn't mean that the subtle implications were true.

"You are both friends, and... have a connection beyond Voyager." He paused, in thought, before he then continued. "In times of stress, Tuvok is your rock, you know you can depend on him. But you also know that as a vulcan, he tends to be uncomfortable with certain subjects. You've known him since before Voyager, so your friendship isn't all that surprising. On the other hand, Harry is like... a younger brother, or son or... we can't help but feel protective of him. We try our best to let him grow but without unnecessary risks to his safety. And sometimes that's not enough to keep him out of trouble. Your, relationship with Harry is therefore quite different to yours with Tuvok. And it is strongly work-oriented, but in his case, it's not all that bad of a thing. His hopes for a quick return means he holds onto the notion of, socially, you both keeping the other at arms length. That when we get back, Senior officer or not, he's just an ensign and you're a Captain."

She was nodding, agreeing, so he continued.

"B'Elanna, on the other hand, has never liked you much, and it started off with her disagreeing over your decision at the Caretakers array. Even after gaining the position of Chief Engineer, for a while she still held that... dislike, justifying it with that she wasn't starfleet then. Ever since, your professional relationship stayed so, professional, no more."

She noticed he was hesitant to continue, and was going to suggest asking about what he perceived Tom to be to her, but he continued on with himself.

"Our connection comes from that even as a Maquis, I was the commander of a ship and crew, and cared for them more than my own safety. Now, this ship is ours, this crew is ours. I care for those who were, before, your crew, as much as those who were, before, mine. And daresay, you care just the same."

She nodded, almost vehemently were it possible.

"It is professional and, I believe, somewhat personal, we are friends, understand what being at the top is like, and we've been close on the personal level ever since, new earth." He stopped for a moment, before continuing, "Some of the closeness we had there, I do miss it a little, but we were no longer captain and first officer, just two people in a situation neither of us liked, even though you more so. I am happy with the middle ground we've gotten."

She smiled gratefully, and sensed that he, despite his lack of actual dislike for Tom, didn't want to continue on with his analysis of her friendships. "And Tom?" She nudged.

"First, before Voyager, you knew him a little thanks to small visits, here and there, through your time as then-captain Owen Paris' protegee. After Caldik prime an the Maquis, the next time you met him was in aucland, I believe?" She nodded. "You didn't need him for the mission. Now I know Voyager and its capabilities, when Tom hasn't been at the helm, I know that you didn't."

The only indication that she agreed with him in that even then she knew she didn't need him was the slight shuffle, although he wasn't certain if that was indeed an indication of such.

"On his side of that, you were the one who got him out of jail, and then you were the one who gave him a field commission, which I think I was against, my memory is a little hazy about that," He joked, "And for awhile, the only person aboard who believed in him."

"Harry does." She inserted, but knew what he meant.

"Harry admits that he's often been Naive about certain things, and he knows that, if he had the full story about tom..? He told me what he'd been told after Tom did come aboard wasn't even scratching the surface. No, Harry wouldn't have had faith in Tom. So really, I can't count him."

She nodded, everyone else had even for a few months, been trying to convince Harry that Tom was... well enough of that.

"That leaves you, and only you, who believed in him. To him, that meant, means... a lot."

She finaly asked, "And on my side?"

"You know that he is perhaps the only one on this ship that doesn't really care, wether or not we get home anytime soon. You know that that is perhaps the reason why he can have as much... fun as he does, because he doesn't worry about if we'll get home. You know that, to him, Voyager is home. Far more than Earth. And knowing what I do about him, I understand why that is so. Voyager has become a home for me, but I know that when we get back, I would have other homes to go, to visit. Even then, Voyager would still be a part of my life in some way, I know that, but it wouldn't be all. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if, when we do get home, to be permanently stationed on this ship."

She looked out of her window, assimilating some of that. Some was news, and some... wasn't.

She spoke up, "Because I know he has fun, that he doesn't worry, I have spend time with him." Looking back at Chakotay, she admitted, "When I'm with him on the holodeck... Home... my home on Earth, I mean, never feels as far away as it does."

"He reminds everyone of home, because they know that of us all, he's the only one of us who's in the only place he will ever consider home."

Half an hour later, well, half an hour after tom had left with was in the ten to twenty minute ballpark of after the above conversation finished, Janeway was just getting up to join Tom when she saw Chakotay frowning, his communicator malfunctioning while trying to see if B'Elanna was up to a game of something. It kept cutting out for some reason.

Tom hadn't said anything about the myterious bugs that had plagued everyone, not once. Janeway only noticed it when they were on the holodeck.

"So do you have any interesting stories about Voyagers' malfunctions?"

He shook his head, smiling, "Actually, Captain, it seems that of us all, I'm the only one of us who isn't directly affected by these problems."

It was a week before she figured out the true meaning of his words. She was alone in her quarters, her lights weren't working, strangely it happened a few minutes after she'd muttered about missing home.

Looking up slightly, she sighed, "i'm sorry."

A few seconds later, the lights came back on, and she received a message from B'Elanna that the problem was gone before she could even fix it... It took her five minutes to put all the pieces together, and she spoke to her ship again, "You know you're my home, right?" No response. "It's just, I miss the people we all knew."

For about 5, almost 6 months afterward, it had become a case of that of them all, only Tom and then also Kathryn, who weren't directly affected by those mysterious malfunctions that never happened in those life threatening situations but were a daily part of 'normal' life aboard voyager...


End file.
